Pass the BISCUITS

Whether covered in chocolate or dunked in tea, we Brits can't break our habit

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As a nation, we eat more biscuits than any other country, with 55% of us buying them at least once a week. Crumbs, we even have an annual biscuit day on 29 May to celebrate, whether we're ginger nuts or digestive devotees! But where did our love of the humble biscuit come from?

THE EARLIEST BISCUITS

We have the ancient world to thank for the first biscuits. 'Barley bread was sliced up and dried to make hard rusks that were then fermented and used to make beer,' explains food historian Lizzie Collingham, the author of The Biscuit: The History of a Very British Indulgence.

The Romans called these hard rusks panis bicoctus, meaning bread twice-baked, which is where the name biscuit comes from. 'These long-lasting savoury biscuits remained a staple for sailors, soldiers and explorers,' explains Lizzie. 'But it was the 9th century when sugar cane was brought from India to Asia, and then Europe that the sweet biscuits so many of us love today started to be made.'